Considering how incredibly brilliant they are at so many things (like becoming epoch-definingly rich, for example) Google is remarkably awful at email spam.  Awful to the point that their spam folder is an active nuisance, and the messages they divert into the damn thing seem to be entirely random.

Senders I have marked as spam don’t always go in there, personal emails – even those sent to one recipient only – occasionally do end up in there, and the rest of them seem to be just a random selection of stuff people send me, with no rhyme or reason to the choices whatsoever.  They would honestly be more helpful if they just let every damn thing into my inbox and let me sort it out myself.

Anyhewww… if it stays this nice for the rest of the day I may open a beer in the back garden and spark up the barbecue for the first time this year.  Mrs. Toad will be out on the piss with her colleagues, so it will be peaceful enough – well, at least until I get a bit too pished that is. And then I think I’ll head up to Neu Reekie at the Scottish Book Trust.

So there, that’s my day planned out, now to find a nice way to waste time until say, oooh, 4pm when I can reasonably commence weekend funtimes. Those who can’t join me in the back garden this afternoon can certainly join me in frittering away the time until then by de-lurking, answering the five silly questions below, and then generally wasting time on the internet until the working week is well and truly over.

1. The oddest things you’ve received spam email about.
2. An old fashioned preserved foodstuff which seems as anachronistic as spam,
3. What does a sunny day most make you feel like doing?
4. Some sunny day music.
5. It’s time for an ice-cream – what would you choose?

Beck – Deadweight

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REM – Leave

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Elvis Presley – Always on My Mind

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Alabama 3 – Peace in the Valley

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Squirrel Nut Zippers – Put a Lid on It

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This particular podcast was somewhat railroaded by two different things, and hence has very little of the new music/inbox harvesting stuff you may have come to expect from Song, by Toad.

Firstly, I went to see Jeffrey Lewis on Wednesday.  He was supported by Seth Faergolzia from Dufus and covered 2+2=? by the Bob Seger System, which explains two of the songs.

Secondly, I went out to visit a couple of pals on Thursday night.  That resulted in an epic Pearl Jam-a-thon, so I was looking for some Pearl Jam to play today, only to happen across an old compilation with Pearl Jam, Luna, The Magnetic Fields, Yo La Tengo, Beck and others on it, which explains a couple more songs.  As for the rest, well, there’s just no excuse really, is there.

Direct download: Toadcast #198 – The Revivalcast
Subscribe to the Toadcasts on iTunes

01. Soulsavers – Revival (00.16)
02. Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer (08.47)
03. Seth Faergolzia – Weird Old Toad (16.40)
04. Bob Seger System – 2+2=? (19.53)
05. Lords of Bastard – Chant (25.24)
06. The Blue Runes – Stream Fog (31.59)
07. Beck – Golden Age (37.54)
08. Luna – Black Champagne (42.24)
09. The Eagles – Outlaw Man (52.25)
10. Honey Train – Yo Toad/Deepness (Demo) (58.37)

 When you start a business, certain things which stamp you with the mark of legitimacy are basically just a nuisance.  Completing your accounts for the year is very much one of these: an awful chore, which never at any point makes you feel like your are a proper business-owning muthafucka and don’t you forget it, more like a twelve-year-old staring resentfully at their homework.

Being a blogger doesn’t help.  If I called myself a writer or the owner of one of the UK’s most upwardly mobile record labels then I would feel like… I dunno, like I wasn’t just making shit up as I go along and hoping to get away with it.  But the very term ‘blogger’, no matter how many of the world’s most respected writers now write blogs too, still reeks of a misunderstood teenager complaining into the vast, indifferent wastelands of the internet, whilst sitting in his parents’ basement at three in the morning with his hand down his pants and a half-eaten jumbo pack of Cheesy Wotsits spilling over the keyboard.

Recently, though, I have started to have to do things which actually make you feel awkwardly legitimate.  Not legitimate specifically because you have to do them, but because the very act of doing them makes you finally realise that actually it is legitimate and right for you to be doing them, which is actually a bit of a shock when it finally dawns on you.

I have written, for example, a couple of employment references for people in our bands, and over the last couple of years, a couple of employer references for people renting flats.  And actually, given the nature of the music industry, I am probably just about the right person to be doing it, which is an odd sensation.

And, seeing as I am now defining pissing about on the internet as being a proper job, how do I define skiving?  When you fill in your Friday Fives and then bugger about talking pish for the rest of the afternoon you are genuinely skiving, but when I do it am I executing business strategy?  I liked it better when it was just outright skiving, frankly.

1. Thing you do which makes you feel most like a proper grown-up (n.b. you don’t have to actually be a grown-up to answer this).
2. Thing which still makes you feel like a child – not past-time, we all have those, more a chore of some description.
3. Thing you thought would make you feel grown-up but didn’t.
4. Something you have entirely grown out of enjoying.
5. Thing which, despite growing up, hasn’t lost its appeal.

Luna – Dear Diary

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Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer

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Beck – Guess I’m Doin’ Fine

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Yo La Tengo – Upside Down

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Future Bible Heroes – Losing Your Affection

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And what, you might ask, is a Stinky Liberace?  Well I will tell you.  It comes from a strange and strangely detailed dream I had last night, which I will try and explain in the sanest way possible.

Myself and a random other person were monitoring someone’s internet usage for some unspecified reason or other.  We noted that the pages were flicking by so fast that it was probable that they were just scrolling through but not actually reading anything.

Then, for the briefest second, another page popped up and then vanished again.  ‘Oh,’ I thought to myself, ‘so they are reading something.’ I went to have a look at what it was, and as I did I was vaguely aware, out of the corner of my eye, of someone running out of the front of the building to the public toilets across the road.  At this point I became aware, in that vague way you do in dreams, that we were in South America.

Anyway, I went to investigate the page which had snagged the attention of the person we were (for no reason that remember being aware of) spying on.  It was just a plain text ad a bit like the ones on Google, and not very interesting, and beside it was a link which said something like those captions you see on Page 3 of the Sun: ‘Michelle, 23, from Taunton’ or something like that.

‘You dirty bastard’, I thought to myself. ‘You don’t pay attention to anything, but you’re aware enough to find the link to the titillating picture of the pretty girl.’  And then I thought, ‘ah fuck it, I might as well’ and clicked on the link myself.

There was nothing there, though, just a small, vague jpeg of what looked a bit like one of those 3D barcodes.  ‘Ach, just bait for spyware’, I thought and peered at it to see what the fuzzy little thumbnail might actually be.  At that point someone jumped up and pointed and screeched with laughter “He got a Stinky Liberace, he got a Stinky Liberace!”

Everyone around me was cackling with glee and pointing, but I had no idea what they were on about, but I happened to put my hand up to my head, and found I had this nasty glue-like substance in my hair.  It suddenly dawned on me why that guy earlier had dashed across the road to the public toilet – he had to wash it out fast.

So I charged off myself and frantically barged someone out of the way, to plug up the sink and run the hot water.  Because the toilet was a bit of a shack in South America there wasn’t much handsoap, so I scrabbled around trying to cobble together whatever I could to wash whatever it was out of my hair.

Around now it dawned on me that a Stinky Liberace was one of those nasty internet pranks to dupe people into clicking on links and then shaming them by getting them to lean into the monitor to peer at the vague thumbnail before shooting some sort of nasty gluey stuff at them as the punchline. There was even a song everyone was singing at me, with a sort of circus-like tune: “He got a Stinky Liberaaaa-chee! He got a Stinky Liberaaaaa-chee!”

And all the time I was wrestling people out of the way in that public toilet in South America to get at the sink and all the handsoap I could get my hands on was ‘How is that fucking possible, it shouldn’t be possible to make something like that squirt out of a computer’ while that fucking annoying song rang around the bloody place.

So now you know what a Stinky Liberace is.  Be careful what you click on on the internet people, or you could end up trying to wash your hair in the sink of a public toilet in South America.  And then what a tool you’d feel.

And you thought you were strange.

I even, as soon as I woke up, looked up the term ‘Stinky Liberace’ to see how the fuck it ended up popping into my head, but it seems not to exist.  Entirely a product of my sleeping brain, apparently.  Which is reassuring in some ways, and kind of terrifying in others.

Anyway, ummm… yeah, I’ll stop now, here’s the Friday Fives.

1. In a word, how did this post make you feel?
2. Stupidest email/attachment anyone ever forwarded you.
3. Of which beast would you like stuffed and mounted head to hang above your fireplace?
4. Best prank you’ve ever played.
5. Best (ie worst) prank that has been played on you.

These five songs were foisted upon me by Neil from Meursault because (with the exception of a particular Scottish emo-folk band) he thinks my music taste is fucking shite.

Beck – Burnt Orange Peel

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The Notwist – Gloomy Planets

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Melanie – What Have They Done to My Song, Ma

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Fog – Ditherer

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Dufus – Radiation

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I love how I’m the self-appointed expert around here, but every damn fucker I know has better taste in music than me.  DAMN YOU, INTERNET!

Do you remember shuttle runs?  They were the single most unpleasant fitness exercise I ever remember being forced to do, and I was quite fit as a young ‘un.

Anyhow, today I am charging back and forth from Carluke, where we are getting some mastering done for the label, to the house, to the printers to collect some promo material, to the house to get them couriered down to London and then back to Carluke once more.  I don’t know if I’ll need a pint or a nap more desperately by the time all this shit is done.

I am also bracing myself for a little bit of trouble with the fearsome Mrs. Toad.  I may have queried Record Store Day a fair bit this week, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to it, and I am most certainly going to be out of bed sharpish to trundle into town on Saturday and see what’s what.

Where this may prove to be a controversial decision is that Mrs. Toad has been away in God Bless America for the last week and only gets back on Saturday morning, and I would guess that she might anticipate a little more love and attention than ‘Hello darling, nice to have you back, but I’m off to the shops and I’ll see you in a few hours’.  Ah well, some people are football widows, and Mrs. Toad is a music widow. Them’s the breaks.

Anyhow, in the meantime, I should stop wasting time and get on with wasting time.

1. Your favourite form of exercise.
2. Your least favourite form of exercise.
3. Which hobby always takes up just a little more of your time than any partner might reasonably be expected to understand?
4. We were too disorganised this year, but what should Song, by Toad Records do for Record Store Day in 2012?
5. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Luna – Dear Diary

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Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer

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Beck – Guess I’m Doing’ Fine

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Yo La Tengo – Upside Down

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Magnetic Fields – Sad Little Moon

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I took a real physical roll of camera film to be developed yesterday. Haven’t done that in a while. Unfortunately the photos it contained were a series of rather grisly images taken with a fish-eye camera at a late-night after-party back at ours last weekend at Homegame.

The guy in the camera shop did look at me a bit funny when I went back in to collect them.

I didn’t bother getting real photo prints, though. I figured the photos were only going up on Facebook for a bit of a giggle, so they might as well just go straight onto a CD. There was no point paying extra for a pack of prints. Which struck me as very revealing about how we interact with photos now in the Web 2.0 world, populated with Facebook, Twitpic and Flickr. It’s like the old joke that asks when was the last time you played Solitaire with a real pack of cards.

When was the last time you looked through a real set of photos?

Matthew only asked me to compose this Friday Five late last night, and I had a panic on the bus this morning because I realised I hadn’t copied five MP3s off my hard-drive at home to put up on the post.

Then I remembered that I had meant to take a compilation CD to the Homegame mix-tape swap bin; (You drop a compilation CD off when you arrive on Friday, then return on Saturday to collect a random CD of someone else’s in return. A bit like a mix-tape Secret Santa.) but I managed to leave the CD itself at home after compiling and burning it. Luckily for us today I still had all the tracks for my compilation on my portable USB hard drive that lives in my bag.

So that has ended up giving today’s chioce of tunes the same theme as my compilation CD was going to have; classic ‘Side One: Track One’ songs.

So here’s today’s test:

1. Tell us a fishing story. Come on, everyone’s got at least one fishing story.

2. What embarassing things tend to happen around you when you stay up late?

3. What was on the last real camera film you had developed?

4. What do you do with photos you take nowadays?

5. Best Side One: Track One ever.

And here are the choons:

Beck – Loser

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Blur – For Tomorrow

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Grand Champeen – Cottonmouth

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Mercury Rev – Secret for a Song

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Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop

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This podcast is a little bit random, I have to say.  There are songs which follow on from the like folk/hate covers posts which have appeared over the course of the last week or so on the site, a couple are related to the fact that Mrs. Toad is once more away in God Bless America shooting illegal aliens, chewing gum, whistling Dixie, or whatever the fuck it is they do over there, while most of the first half is related to the fact that my friend Andrew is coming to visit this weekend.

They do sort of relate to one another, the songs, at least.  Or there’s a bit of overlap anyway.  I never keep much track of it, but this is at least the second version of Blues Run the Game we’ve had on the podcasts, and I have no idea if I’ve ever actually repeated a song on these things.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I had, because I’m bloody disorganised when it comes to this kind of thing.

Anyhow, no scary metal bastards making your ears bleed this week, just a lot of lovely folky stuff and a couple of scratchy indie bands.  Oh, and Jack White.  I’d say that he was an egomaniacal dick, but he’s massive and would probably kick my arse, so I won’t.  Recent stuttering aside, though, he’s produced some cracking tunes, whatever you think of the guy.

Toadcast #92 – The Pantscast

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01. Soul Asylum – New World (04.17)
02. The Tragically Hip – Pigeon Camera (10.29)
03. Beck – Guess I’m Doing Fine (14.47)
04. The White Stripes – I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself (24.46)
05. Elbow – Fugitive Motel (29.57)
06. Billy Bragg – Wishing the Days Away (Alternative Version) (34.53)
07. Tortoise & Bonnie Prince Billy – Thunder Road (43.15)
08. Christopher Bell – Pretty Thing (53.53)
09. Nick Drake – Blues Run the Game (55.33)
10. Fairport Convention – Crazy Man Michael (60.52)

I used to love taking the train down to London.  When GNER had the East Coast mainline Mrs. Toad and used to travel pretty regularly, in the days when I lived in London and we only saw one another every couple of weeks.  As often as we could we would go and sit in the dining car and slowly get drunk all the way to the end of the line.  Those were really rather romantic days.

Anyway, when GNER’s parent company got into trouble they were forced to sell off the East Coast mainline under some obscure rule of Capitalism which requires failing companies to get rid of the only bits of them which work – in other words the only parts of the company which might actually help them work through their problems and get back on their feet.  Obviously if this doesn’t make perfect sense to you then you must be some sort of Communist, but it strikes me as some sort of ludicrous rule dreamt up by the vultures rather than the victims, but hey ho.  If nationwide healthcare is too Communisty for you then what chance do sensible rules of business have?

Anyhow, that line went to National Express who have made an unspeakable balls up of the whole operation.  Apart from running a previously healthy line into near-bankruptcy they have taken away the fucking dining cars, which now only operate on a fraction of the trains.  So yes, making a service notably more shit and that service therefore becoming markedly less favourable with customers, who’d have thought those two were connected.  Gosh the world can be a strange place sometimes.

So, this being Friday, please take the opportunity to de-lurk and fill in your Friday Five:

1. Favourite mode of long-distance transport.
2. Weirdest place you’ve had a surprisingly civillised meal.
3. Thing that just isn’t what it used to be.
4. Most boring everyday thing which actually turned out to be quite romantic.
5. Most annoying train habit.

Beck – Broken Train

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Eels – Railroad Man

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Billy Bragg – Train Train

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iLiKETRAiNS – The Beeching Report

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Phil Ochs – Automation Song

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Well, we are nearing the end of our time in Puglia.  We’re spending a couple of days in or near Napoli before we fly back on Sunday, presumably troughing like total pigs, rather than paying all that much attention to culture and all that bobbins.

Mrs. Toad is doing Sudoku and complaining about the ‘wrong sort of paper’.  I kid you not, it’s just like British fucking Rail and their ‘wrong type of snow’, but she insists it’s just for that reason that she can’t solve them, not because they’re too hard.  Personally I find myself wondering if ‘evil’ is used to describe the comments one’s spouse will inevitably make when you fail to complete it, rather than the actual difficulty of the Sudoku puzzle itself.

So yes, we have done the lazing about and there are now a few days of actually doing shit in between us and a return to the damp splendour of the British Isles.  I suppose this is what you’re supposed to do on holiday – pay attention to the country you’re in and return, eventually – but honestly, another week of doing bollocks-all wouldn’t hurt anyone would it?

Toadcast #75 – The Bone Idlecast

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01. Snow Patrol – An Olive Grove Facing the Sea (04.14)
02. Beck – The Golden Age (12.33)
03. Belle & Sebastian – Simple Things (19.32)
04. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Tom Justice, the Choirboy Robber (21.00)
05. Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues (29.10)
06. Navigator – Work is Done (NOT Change, as we announced, sorry!) (34.44)
07. Lord Cut Glass – Holy Fuck! (40.19)
08. Son Volt – Sultana (46.46)
09. Smog – Drinking at the Dam (56.30)
10. Alela Diane – Age Old Blue (60.17)

Fear not, this isn’t quite as horribly overbearing as it could have been. The ranting is actually fairly under control, and the self-important pontificating not quite as reckless as it could so easily have been, partly because I wasn’t quite as liberal with the gin as I have been in the past.

The reason it’s called the Popecast is because of this amazing little story about Catholics in the States issuing death threats to a kid who took a communion wafer out of the church with him.  The hilarious PZ Myers then got involved, threatening to show them what real desecration would look like, and the pandemonium reached all new levels of shrillness.

The thing that really got my goat about all this was not so much that Catholics took offence, but more the level of the hysteria and the language of persecution.  It was honestly described as kidnapping and as a hate crime by various loonies, and there was nothing like enough ‘Oh fucking grow up and get the fuck over it’ being said.  People seem to be seeking all sorts of odd legal protections for their crazy superstitions these days, and I am flabberghasted that a particular kind of idea is being so fucking mollycoddled as to be deemed immune from criticism and contempt.  Come on, people, fuck your religious convictions and learn to deal with the fact that most of the planet thinks they’re crazy – and that applies to atheists as well.

Anyhow, I promise this doesn’t take over too much of the podcast, and that the music is given plenty of space to breathe.

Toadcast #33 – The Popecast

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01. Half Man Half Biscuit – Vatican Broadside (00.07)
02. Beck – Profanity Prayers (02.27)
03. Punch & the Apostles – Nouveau Gypsy (10.20)
04. I Said Yes – The Town Crier (15.07)
05. Albert Hammond Jr. – GFC (20.47)
06. Bonnie Prince Billy – So Everyone (23.51)
07. Tom Lehrer – Vatican Rag (33.53)
08. The Savings & Loan – Catholic Boys in the Rain (37.12)
09. Derek Meins – The Gin Song (42.57)
10. Holly Golightly & the Broke-Offs – Devil Do (48.47)
11. Ghostkeeper – Solid Gold (56.02)
12. Forest Fire – Fortune Teller (60.44)
13. Silver Jews – Strange Victory, Strange Defeat (70.22)
14. Sparrow & the Workshop – Magic Tricks (77.55)
15. The Just Joans – Hey Boy, You’re Oh So Sensitive (79.43)
16. Roy Zimmerman – Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual (85.41)
17. Willard Grant Conspiracy – Evening Mass (97.16)

And just for the fun, here are the two silly songs for you to download:
Tom Lehrer – Vatican Rag[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/TheVaticanRag.mp3]
Roy Zimmerman – Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/RoyZimmerman-TedHaggardIsCompletelyHeterosexual.mp3]